im with ian on this penny is as far as im concerned the premier site,im a bit of a moocher and stay away from the hides if possible there are many great unwatched areas of penny,and realy its been made much easier to walk round than ever before.we used to have to make our way through the old pennington tip,fight our way behind sorrocow farm because the footpath thats through it now used to be blocked by a pack of dogs,wagons anf the fella who lived at the farm who wouldnt let you through.then you take your life in your hands on the main road,until we came to the slag heaps,which used to be so muddyit was likewalking with lead boots on.there was no hides and we had to share the point with a constant line of fishermen.but we definately saw more birds than there is there now,just ask charlie owen or dave wilson,or ian even they will tell ya what the flash was like.and we loved every minuite we were there.also i think a factor in the birds not being seen is the lack of youth in birding,there used to be a group of us in the 70s-80s of about 8 who were always somewere on the flash not the area between the golf house to horrocks hide but we could be anywere between pennington park and lightshaw,and everywere in between.

Very much agree with you Ian on all counts. It speaks volumes for Pennington though, because he`s now insisting that it falls within the boundry of the Metropolitan Borough of Bolton ! ?

(please note I've moved this thread to the discussions page as it could well run and run )

This could well be a contentious issue but I couldn't resist having my say too

Craig is of course right, but I think the problem is considerably larger than we might think. In the late 70's through the 80's to the early 90's Pennington had several very dedicated and experienced patch workers, through Frank Horrocks, Dave Wilson, the 'moochers' (Paddy, John, Paul), meself through to Paul Robinson to name but afew, the whole area was covered regularly and thoroughly turning up some remarkable birds. It is worth remembering these birders had an intimate knowledge of the area formed from basically growing up birding there, they covered the area methodically and very regulalry, of recent years Pennington has lost much of it's regular watchers with more 'passing trade' and although John Lyons and the very capable Barry Hulme do their best, the south side of the flash is vertually unwatched and was often one of the best spots 'back in the day', also later on in the afternoon/evening there can be almost no coverage, and I've often found that plenty of good stuff turns up in the evening! Audenshaw on the otherhand has a very dedicated and motivated bunch of capable birders who cover the site very regularly and lets face it there's not much 'bush bashing', 'grasslands thrashing' or 'tree peering' necessary when birding Audy!

Now the contentious bit I still believe Pennington is THE premier birding site in the county, no problem. Audenshaw may (but I wouldn't be too sure) have the larger list but it has lost much of it's habitat and recording area which brought many of those birds in, plus I doubt it has an annual bird list to match Pennington although I'll be happy to be proven wrong More importantly, although there is no doubt Audy produces a good proportion of the rare and scarce bird records in the county, there is no site in the county which can match Pennington for the number of available species on any visit the year round, variety of habitat, views of birds, viewing access (lets face it Bunting Hide in winter is great), disabled access, parking and chances of obtaining an ice cream Yes, it can be absolutely packed at weekends (and not with birders) and covering the whole area can take around 4 hours but one only has to look at the list of past rare birds there alone to see it's full potential.

The only thing I would say about Pennington, which may or may not have some bearing on the issue is that birders seem more content to sit in hides nowadays. Perhaps we miss more flying overhead? Perhaps we feel less inclined to walk around when we can get fantastic views of birds from the many various hides? Perhaps it has no bearing at all but ask yourself if you know where Sorrowcow Farm pond is (site of the 70's Great Reed Warbler), have you ever checked the shore in front of the yacht club for waders or the trees around Mosely Hall that used to hold so many decent birds, how often do you 'bash the bushes' around the Plank Lane car park (where many migrants go unnoticed and where once held afew Arctic Redpolls) or give the Plank Lane end of the flash a 'good coat of looking at' other than distantly from Horrock's hide (the area where the brook flows in, often attracting ducks to feed here and forming a sand bank which attracts waders)?

If only we could cover Pennington like those hardy buggers at Audenshaw cover there, I think we'd see a marked difference

Judith,

I have it on good authority ( Phil Rhodes ) that Rumworth Lodge is THE `premier` site in G.M. - if not the whole of England ! ! !

the things that seem to be missing these days are the flocks of small waders,there used to always be a dozen or so dunlin,a few turnstone,etc at this time of year.